Swimming DM in Berlin: Märtens and Köhler win titles

German swimming championships always have two sides. Due to their early timing, they are considered a form and yardstick on the way to the season’s highlights – like this year the European Championships in August in Paris. At the same time, the DM in Berlin is always a little in the shadow of attention, especially in the post-Olympic years. And wrongly so, as was shown last weekend. For four days, the national elite competed in Prenzlauer Berg and showed that they are a force to be reckoned with in France.

On Sunday, the final day, the three best German women, Anna Elendt (SG Frankfurt), Isabel Gose (SC Magdeburg) and Angelina Köhler (SG Neukölln Berlin), confirmed their dominance in this country for years. And each swam to their 15th championship title.

While Elendt and Köhler each won three gold medals in Berlin, Gose’s final success in the 800 meter freestyle was her fourth at this DM. The 23-year-old also secured the unofficial title of most successful participant in 2026. Gose has long since become one of the world’s best freestyle experts on the long distance in Magdeburg, where she trains with Olympic champions Florian Wellbrock and Lukas Märtens developed. At the Summer Games in Paris she won bronze in the 1500 meters.

On Sunday evening, Gose, who will be competing again in the Open Water World Cup in Golfo Aranci in a few days, despite her exhaustion, had dinner with Angelina Köhler – the DSV’s leading dolphin expert.

Köhler, the 2024 world champion in the 100 meter butterfly and the confident winner of the half distance on Sunday, was only eleven hundredths above her German record in 25.61 seconds, which she had actually wanted to break. So with all the titles, why not praise the development of German women’s swimming? “We are a great trio. Anna, Isa and I started together in the youth national team, and now we are the three girls who rock everything up front. That’s very cool,” said Köhler.

Elendt, who has been living and training in the USA for years, swam to the title on all breaststroke events, just like last year, and also cracked the missing European Championship standard in the 200 meter breaststroke.

For the men, the focus was not only on the world champion and Paris Olympic champion Märtens. The 24-year-old swam his world record 400 meter freestyle in Berlin in 3:41.76 minutes, the second fastest time in the world this year. “We are a country with over 80 million people. Being the fastest of them does something to you, and you can’t downplay that,” said Märtens. In the 800 meter freestyle, however, he narrowly had to bow to World Championship runner-up Sven Schwarz (Waspo 98 Hannover), who was also unbeatable over 1500 meters. The DSV looks to a rosy future over its promising long stretches, and not just because of this duo. Because Johannes Liebmann, 19, who trains with Märtens in Magdeburg, beat Schwarz’ 1500 meter European record two weeks ago in Stockholm. Liebmann did not take part in the German Championships, as did Wellbrock, who swam at the Open Water World Cup in Ibiza but was disappointed there.

The “poster boy” of the DSV, Melvin Imoudu (Potsdamer SV), was able to celebrate in Berlin. The 27-year-old not only adorned the advertising posters for the DM, but also came first in the 50 meter breaststroke in a new German record time of 26.57 seconds. Incidentally, the visually impaired para-swimmer Taliso Engel (1. FC Nürnberg) came seventh in this race – an impressive achievement.

There is a particular focus on the 50-meter distances towards the 2028 Olympic Games, as they have been added to the program for Los Angeles – and therefore also play an important role in the “finals” in Hanover at the end of July.